Not long after the 1955 play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” earned renowned 20th Century American playwright Tennessee Williams his second Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award, he published an essay in Playbill magazine about the playwright’s relationship to the director of his plays.
The songs outshine the script — how could it be otherwise? — in “Motown the Musical,” written by none other than Motown founder Berry Gordy (adapting his autobiography, “To Be Loved: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown”) and scored with more than 50 of the immortal tunes his record label issued between 1958 and 1983.
Lizzy Stone, a music theatre major at Western Michigan University, said her parents enrolled her at Portage Northern High School specifically for its esteemed drama program.
Rube Goldberg is more than just a man — he’s also an adjective. Defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply,” the iconic American cartoonist and illustrator’s work — including his famous invention drawings — will be on display this month at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in its latest exhibit.
Many people recognize and collect Edward S. Curtis’ portraits of Native Americans and canyon and desert landscapes in America’s west, but his real intent was to document the lives of the indigenous tribes he spent nearly 30 years studying.
A new children’s book, The Dance of the Violin, is based on superstar violinist Joshua Bell’s first competition at the age of 12.
Featuring a 42-member cast, singing, dancing and high-flying effects, Muskegon Civic Theatre hopes to fill Frauenthal Theater and wow audiences with its spring musical, Mary Poppins.
Colorful paintings line the halls of the K-12 building at the Grand Rapids Ellington Academy of Arts and Technology. Each work exists as an individual expression, made even more powerful in abundance.
Failure is not a word that many people take lightly. It's certainly not something many would like to admit they are dealing with or have experienced. And yet, a local business-turned-movement is celebrating five years of failure this month.
Peter Perez has been a magnet for uncommon musical experiences his entire life. From conducting his youth festival orchestra as a youngster to requesting that his upstairs neighbor, Placido Domingo, “please rehearse louder,” such experiences have led him to his new role as the Grand Rapids Symphony CEO.
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality,” the Cheshire Cat purrs in “Alice in Wonderland.” In today’s post postmodern cultural landscape of the information age, in which “alternative facts” litter our news and going “down the rabbit hole” is a central and daily metaphor in our individual and collective lives, there is perhaps no more appropriate story.
Devin Price was prepared to live the life of a struggling actor in New York City, but it didn’t take the Lansing native long to land a plum role in Motown: The Musical.
In Farmers Alley’s crowd-pleasing, high-energy production of 1940s-era musical revue The Andrews Brothers, straight men dress up as women, white Americans dress up as indigenous Pacific Islanders, and a middle-aged woman dresses up as an ingenue.
By now, most people are familiar with Rosie the Riveter, the symbol representing the legions of women who filed into the workplace during World War II to take over the jobs of men sent overseas. Often, they were working to aid the war effort.
